Adventures in Shopping

[Carson Dyle]

Besides groceries, I don't shop a whole hell of a lot anymore at many retail stores. But I went out tonight to a couple different places, the first one was the most remarkable.

A while back I saw a kitchen gadget at Kmart that I could use. So I stopped in tonight and picked it up, along with another item. The scene at the checkout stand went something like this:

Cashier: Is there a phone number with that?
Me: A what?
Cashier: Phone number.
Me: A phone number?
Cashier: For the rewards program.
Me: Oh. No.
Cashier: You'll be asked a question when you swipe your card.
Me: swipe card
Card machine: Would you like to donate $1 $2 $5 $10 to <blah><blah>
Me: press "No"
Me: have to swipe the card again
Cashier: Would you like a receipt?
Me: Yes
Cashier: Hands me the receipt. Would you like a bag?
Me: Yes
Cashier: Puts stuff in bag, leaves it hanging on the side of the checkout stand.
Me: I grab the bag, just a little pissed off by now. By the time I have the bag in hand and look up again, the cashier is gone, as in nowhere within 20 feet of the register. Like she was shot out of a cannon.

WTF?

Phone numbers. Donations. F'd up card system. Cashier that wants to be anywhere else.

Why would I NOT want the receipt for $30 in merchandise purchases? Why do you have to ask? Why do you need to ask if the customer wants a bag? Wouldn't it have been 10x easier to just print the f'n receipt, hand it to the customer and put the two items in a bag?

I went to Target next. Cashier asked if I'd found everything. Yes. I swiped my card, the cashier handed me the receipt, stuck my purchases in a bag, handed me the bag. Took less than 30 seconds.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Then I hit a couple more stores, mostly for groceries. One thing I'll never understand is why merchants cannot standardize the customer card swipe user interface? Wouldn't it be in their own best interest to NOT have customers who have to swipe their card two or more times to complete a transaction?

I mostly use a debit card, and there's always the tricky part of every self-swipe transaction where it asks for a PIN number. Do you hit the red Cancel button or the green Ok/Enter button if you don't want to enter a PIN? Sometimes if you hit the green Enter button, it does nothing or it comes back insisting on a PIN until you hit the red Cancel button. But many systems want you to hit the green button and will void the whole transaction if you hit Cancel at that point, forcing you to swipe your card again and not f*ck it up the second time through.

 

[Raizinman]

Keep in mind that cashiers are trained according to store policy. Besides that, there are normally cameras pointed at them all day being monitored for theft and progress. A bad cashier will not last long at any store.

Questions:

How many customers will get pissed off if the cashier forgets to ask for their rewards phone number? How much will this cause a line to form at customer service?

How much receipt tape can be saved by asking customers if they want a receipt or not? Perhaps one in five? Even this savings can be massive.

How many bags can be saved by just asking the customer if they want a bag?

In this eco-friendly world, we are seeing more and more stores moving to asking customers. It has moved beyond just 'paper or plastic' now.

 

[A Casual Fitz]

You must be watching too much South Park. Also, I'm thinking like Raizinman. It's just store protocol now. I get asked all of those things at Rite Aid and it takes just a few seconds.

 

[Jeff7]

Keep in mind that cashiers are trained according to store policy. Besides that, there are normally cameras pointed at them all day being monitored for theft and progress. A bad cashier will not last long at any store.

Questions:

How many customers will get pissed off if the cashier forgets to ask for their rewards phone number? How much will this cause a line to form at customer service?

How much receipt tape can be saved by asking customers if they want a receipt or not? Perhaps one in five? Even this savings can be massive.

How many bags can be saved by just asking the customer if they want a bag?

In this eco-friendly world, we are seeing more and more stores moving to asking customers. It has moved beyond just 'paper or plastic' now.

Contrast that with places that spit out 3" of receipt that's the receipt, and then another 2 feet of garbage advertising or survey information.




Also,

()

Then I hit a couple more stores, mostly for groceries. One thing I'll never understand is why merchants cannot standardize the customer card swipe user interface? Wouldn't it be in their own best interest to NOT have customers who have to swipe their card two or more times to complete a transaction?

I mostly use a debit card, and there's always the tricky part of every self-swipe transaction where it asks for a PIN number. Do you hit the red Cancel button or the green Ok/Enter button if you don't want to enter a PIN? Sometimes if you hit the green Enter button, it does nothing or it comes back insisting on a PIN until you hit the red Cancel button. But many systems want you to hit the green button and will void the whole transaction if you hit Cancel at that point, forcing you to swipe your card again and not f*ck it up the second time through.

My experience with how independent companies standardize:

Company A: Our system is pretty solid and reliable. It should become the standard.

Company B: But...then we'd have to change our system to be compatible. Ours works quite well too. It should be the standard.

Company C: Ours would need to be completely rewritten and redesigned to be compatible. We really don't care about standardizing. We've got a relatively loyal customer base anyway, and keeping things proprietary helps lock them in that way.


Problem solved: Three standards.

:hmm:
Oh, right. One standard. Close enough.

 

[Carson Dyle]

If Kmart is saving big from not printing out 6-8" of receipt tape for some percentage of its customers, then they're in way more serious trouble than anyone imagined.

Go to Walmart or Kroger, buy an apple, get 12" of tape. Nobody asks you if you want it or not.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Then there's the system at one of the other grocery stores where I shop. The self-checkout there is mostly very good. For instance, you can swipe your member card at any time and it will go back through items you've already scanned and they'll be discounted. I scan my debit card at the end and it doesn't even ask me for a PIN. Nice. No signature needed for purchases below $50 (which has become more standard now).

But ... even though it runs the card and charges it, the system won't print a receipt until you notice that there's a payment screen being displayed. You need to hit "Pay Now" and then "Credit Card" on the screen and then the system instantly spits out your receipt. It's clear that the card has already been run ... why make the customer do that?

 

[deadlyapp]

Sears & Kmart (owned by the same company) always ask if you want your receipt emailed or printed now. If you have the rewards program (shop your way) then it automatically defaults to emailing.

While I agree that rewards programs in general have gotten ridiculous (I don't need rewards at places where you should only be making infrequent purchases at low value) they on the whole are a nice feature and one of the few things that can distance one store from every other similar store.

 

[darkewaffle]

I never want a receipt most of the time. Waste of resources.

 

[TwiceOver]

I never want a receipt most of the time. Waste of resources.

Sometimes I wonder how many trees we could save by only giving them out when asked for. I have no use for receipts 99.5% of the time.

 

[dainthomas]

Besides groceries, I don't shop a whole hell of a lot anymore at many retail stores. But I went out tonight to a couple different places, the first one was the most remarkable.

A while back I saw a kitchen gadget at Kmart that I could use. So I stopped in tonight and picked it up, along with another item. The scene at the checkout stand went something like this:

Cashier: Is there a phone number with that?
Me: A what?
Cashier: Phone number.
Me: A phone number?
Cashier: For the rewards program.
Me: Oh. No.
Cashier: You'll be asked a question when you swipe your card.
Me: swipe card
Card machine: Would you like to donate $1 $2 $5 $10 to <blah><blah>
Me: press "No"
Me: have to swipe the card again
Cashier: Would you like a receipt?
Me: Yes
Cashier: Hands me the receipt. Would you like a bag?
Me: Yes
Cashier: Puts stuff in bag, leaves it hanging on the side of the checkout stand.
Me: I grab the bag, just a little pissed off by now. By the time I have the bag in hand and look up again, the cashier is gone, as in nowhere within 20 feet of the register. Like she was shot out of a cannon.

WTF?

Phone numbers. Donations. F'd up card system. Cashier that wants to be anywhere else.

Why would I NOT want the receipt for $30 in merchandise purchases? Why do you have to ask? Why do you need to ask if the customer wants a bag? Wouldn't it have been 10x easier to just print the f'n receipt, hand it to the customer and put the two items in a bag?

I went to Target next. Cashier asked if I'd found everything. Yes. I swiped my card, the cashier handed me the receipt, stuck my purchases in a bag, handed me the bag. Took less than 30 seconds.

You went to an actual store? What year is this? Did you ride your horse and buggy there or your bicycle with the giant front wheel?

 

[Carson Dyle]

You went to an actual store? What year is this? Did you ride your horse and buggy there or your bicycle with the giant front wheel?

I know, right? First time I've had to put on pants in months.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Speaking of which, something else that I was reminded of yet again:

Virtually anything on Amazon with Prime shipping that costs less than $10 will be cheaper at a local brick and mortar store. Browsing the kitchen section at Target, I found something I didn't expect. Not much, just a stoppered bottle that I had sitting in my shopping cart on Amazon, but never purchased. Amazon $7.94, Target $5.99.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Anyone that willfully enters K-Mart or Wal-Mart has only himself to blame for anything that happens there.

 

[midwestfisherman]

Thats what you get for shopping at K-Mart!